


There Will Come Soft Rains

by hitlikehammers



Series: The World We Forge Unending [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (It's Definitely the Sex), All of the Snark Actually, Avengers: Infinity War (Movie) Trailer Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Trailer, Black Panther (2018) Spoilers, Black Panther (Movie) Post-Credits Scene Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Has No Shame, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hair-pulling, It's Not The Soil, M/M, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War, Sexual Humor, Shuri is Better Than All of You, Snarky Bucky Barnes, Snarky Shuri, Steve Rogers Has Only A Little Shame Left, Steve Rogers May Well Truly and Properly Die of Embarrassment, Supersoldiers in Love, Welcome to the Vibranium Capital of the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 14:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13882413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: Steve knows he should have kept his mouth shut as soon as he says it, but well: Bucky’s body against his body’s a really good deterrent for his brain-to-mouth filter.Reallygood.“How’s it stay,” Steve bites his lip; “y’know.”He doesn’t have to say anything else. Shuri’s eyes dance, but her expression remains neutral.“That is easy,” she says, near-on flippant: “it’s the sex.”--Or: Hair-pulling's not the most practical kink for supersoldiers who can pull helicopters from the sky. Until suddenly? It totallyis.And Steve's just curious as towhy, damnit. They don't have to takethatmuch pleasure in how much the question makes him blush.





	There Will Come Soft Rains

**Author's Note:**

> It was a pleasant surprise (on top of the OMG-THAT-WAS-UNUTTERABLY-AMAZING of it all) that _Black Panther_ didn't actually require me to retcon any of these fics. It was strangely well-suited, in fact, to what I was writing, so now it's mostly what I'd planned, plus 10x the amount of Shuri. Because Shuri is the best.
> 
> If you want to start at the _very_ beginning of the tale, post _Civil War_ : [No End To This Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/series/455365)
> 
> If you want to follow some Steve/Bucky learning to feel safe(ish) and heal and be _together_ in Wakanda, pre- _Infinity War_ , as well as having deep meaningful conversations/deep meaningful snark-battles with Shuri, Nakia, and T'Challa: [The World We Forge Unending](http://archiveofourown.org/series/892896)
> 
> Love as ever to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), who convinced me to post this. Because I'm not inherently convinced sexual innuendos and hair-pulling kinks are post-worthy <3
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/there-will-come-soft-rains).

Steve knows he should have kept his mouth shut as soon as he says it, but well: Bucky’s body against his body’s a really good deterrent for his brain-to-mouth filter.

 _Really_ good.

“How’s it stay,” Steve bites his lip; “ _y’know_.”

Bucky tips his head back on the chaise where they’re settled in some remote corner of the royal complex, glancing wide at Steve, upside down with his lips parted and Steve doesn’t think he could love better, fuller, more than in his very moment. 

“That was a very good start, Steven,” Bucky deadpans, patronizing as fuck, and it’s kind of gorgeous still, to hear it again. It’s kind of perfectly fine that Steve’s the butt of the joke, so long as he gets to _hear_ it again. 

“Now, let’s try putting words into sentences. That’s when words go in an order where they _mean_ something that other people can _understand_.”

There’s a snort from just outside the doorway and they turn; Shuri’s passing by but seems to have heard enough to laugh at Steve’s expense, and honestly? The fact that she took Bucky’s advice from the first and treated Steve like the _bonehead he’s always been_ is the one and only way Steve feels real, honest common ground with T’Challa. He trusts the man, and counts him among his closest friends and allies, after everything, but he’s a King and a Warrior beyond death and time and Steve’s a soldier beyond those, maybe, but T’Challa, well, _damn_. 

Bucky doesn’t have that problem, of course, but Steve?

“Full sentences may be a leap,” she tuts with a wicked grin. “Maybe begin with fragments, or basic observations,” she ticks examples off on her fingertips: “Steve thinks. How is? You know? That sort.”

Bucky’s laughing in Steve’s lap, and yep: Steve feels _real_ kinship with T’Challa in this, because Shuri doesn’t hold back her loving-but-lethal mockery with either one of them. 

Steve huffs, more like the child they’re treating him as than he’d prefer, and it gets laughs all around in response—and Steve likes that sound, more than he’d ever admitted to himself before coming here, before opening himself up at the chest and letting himself bleed so he could heal over true, rather than scab harsh—vulnerable, but always safe. 

That said: the laughter’s lovely. But then the context, and the reason, and the half-formed question—not to mention the full-formed one it sprung from—comes back, and hell.

He really _should_ have just kept his damned mouth shut in the first place.

“Teasing ain’t enough to make you blush, Stevie.” Bucky’s looking up at him again, and reaching, and Steve only realises it when he feels just how hot his skin’s gone under Bucky’s palm, the contrast soothing but stark. 

“Else,” Bucky’s voice deepens, but doesn’t lower; “not _that_ kinda teasing.”

And Shuri coughs, obviously covering a cackle—and Steve flushes all the deeper, because he’s still not cultivated quite the camaraderie with her that Bucky has, and also Steve’s come a long way with what bedroom activities he’ll talk about in public, and how much restraint he chooses to _not_ show when it comes to the asshole sprawled across him, but he’ll never be quite as brazen as the one and only Bucky Barnes.

“Voyeur,” Bucky chides her playfully—no heat whatsoever, almost proud honestly, as she settles in the chair across the room and shoots back:

“You are in _my_ home!” Then she’s steepling her fingers and leaning forward like she’s watching a goddamn play. 

Bucky scrunches up his face as he stretches out, conceding both her valid point and his very real intention to stay put and indulge her curiosity alongside his own. 

Awesome.

“Don’t you have paradigm-altering bullshit to do?”

She sighs deeply, rolling her eyes. “Sometimes, you know, I miss the _quiet_ wolf man,” she muses, narrowing her gaze pointedly; “in his _tent_.” 

There’s an unspoken sentiment that Steve’s learned to recognise, though: an undercurrent of _but I don’t miss the broken white boy quite so much_ that softens Bucky’s mouth and Shuri’s eyes, almost imperceptible but absolutely there. 

“Don’t think _you’re_ off the hook,” Bucky turns back to Steve, gaze intent, and yes—sometimes Steve’s stupid. Stupid enough, at least, to think that Bucky’s not a dog with a bone and that having a moment with the genius across from them was going to distract Bucky from what he wants to know: 

“How’s what stay _what_ , Stevie?”

And maybe Steve flushes brighter, hotter, with that, and they might as well carve it on his tombstone now, however many decades or maybe more they get to wring out of this life: _Here lies Steven Grant Rogers, who got a superhero serum and his body still kept betraying him like a traitorous dickhead, even so._

Bucky’s grinning, sly and cheshire, while Steve does actually try to hide his face, which only stretches the grin all the broader.

“I’ll find out sooner or later, you understand,” Shuri butts in with a shrug. “I know everything.”

“She does,” Bucky agrees readily. “She’s scarier with that shit than Natasha ever was.”

“It’s the brains,” Shuri nods. “She’s a spy, of course, not really my thing,” she glances at her nails in an idle, and yet very intimidating way. “And Romanoff is smart, I mean,” she grins:

“I’m just far, far smarter.”

Which isn’t something anyone would ever argue, so yeah.

“And you’re Captain America, fearless bastion of courage,” Bucky needles him with a wicked smirk; “and we both know you don’t have any shame left, so spill.”

And Steve's a master tactician—one of the few things he was good at, genuinely so, even before the serum. He knows when he’s beat.

Damnit.

“How’s _this_ ,” he breathes out slow, and tugs just a little bit hard on Bucky’s hair—not hard, exactly, by _their_ terms, for _why_ he’s asking, but enough that it jerks Bucky’s head and shows; “stay so strong?”

He doesn’t have to say anything else. Shuri’s eyes dance, but her expression remains neutral.

“That is easy,” she says, near-on flippant: “it’s the sex.”

Steve’s about to swallow his tongue as Bucky snorts, but then another voice adds to his shame—because he definitely still has it, he definitely, _definitely_ does—

“That is a valid answer to many things,” Nakia, queen-to-be-someday-when-she’s-ready-because-there-are-things-to-be-done-T’Challa-and-a-woman-can-love-a-man-and-still-tell-him-to-wait slips into the room; “which was the question, in this instance?”

“Oh god,” Steve moans, and Nakia’s laughter adds to the lovely sound that’s making Steve turn redder than a goddamned beet, before Shuri becomes the one to recover her faculties of speech from the giggling first:

“It’s actually the soil.”

Steve turns to her, cheeks still burning, and he can watch the effort it takes her not to burst out laughing again; he thinks he appreciates it, that effort, when the man he loves isn’t even _trying_ , and the shaking of it against Steve’s crotch isn’t doing his sense of shame any favors, either, so.

“It’s true,” Shuri nods, and starts an explanation that’s very obviously been reworded to suit the expertise, or lack thereof, of her current audience. “The more I have been working on the science outreach programs, the more reason I have had to study the effects of the vibranium on every element of our day to day lives, but this time in comparison to so much more information than I had previously considered _for_ comparison. The chemical compounds and reactions that take place change the nutrients, and thereby the health impacts, of anything from bone density to fingernail strength or blood levels or healing rates. It has been fascinating.”

She’s wide-eyed and so alive with her discoveries, and Steve thinks, unbidden, about a future he was heading to that maybe was already here—and he thinks, more solidly, about what that future is all about, a truth he’s been learning here with Bucky at his side. What that future _means_ , beyond serums and wars and duty and rank.

“So yes,” Shuri’s voice shakes him back to the now with a broad grin. “You are super soldiers, but your super-strong hair follicles are all to do with a healthy Wakandan diet.”

Bucky hums consideringly. “So what you’re saying is that your next outreach project should be Vibranium supplements?”

“Right,” Shuri rolls her eyes; “after the list of more _pressing_ initiatives.”

And oh god, _oh god_ , her eyes flick down to Steve’s lap where Bucky’s head is hiding ( _hopefully_ hiding?) his half-hard cock and goddamnit.

 _Pressing_.

“Nakia,” another voice joins them, masculine this time and well-known as its owner steps into the room.

“Oh, hello,” T’Challa greets their small company. “You all seem quite cozy,” he frowns consideringly, a brow raised. “Conspiratory, almost.”

Shuri smiles dangerously. “ _Almost_.”

“Question, Your Majesty,” Bucky takes the opportunity to interject.

“Titles,” T’Challa tuts, and crosses his arms. “This must be very serious.”

Bucky nods, all butter-can’t-melt, and T’Challa’s eyes smirk for him as wide as his lips refuse to—because he’s being _very serious_.

“What is it, exactly, that might make one’s hair here particularly,” and Bucky, who actually _is_ shameless, reaches up and damn well _yanks_ on Steve’s shaggy locks; “resistant to breakage and tearing when exposed to, let’s say,” and fucking _hell_ , but he pulls with each word to come, like he needs to actually prove a point, and because he doesn’t, at all, means that he’s just doing it because he _can_ —

“Immense, tensile, strength?”

T’Challa is a man of power and principle, and amazing decorum. Restraint.

The fact that he’s not laughing as much as he _clearly_ wants to is an incredibly impressive feat, even for a man like him. 

“Oh, that’s simple,” T’Challa says cooly; “it is entirely sexual.”

Four pairs of eyes swivel to Steve, which Steve thinks is wildly unfair, given that Bucky asked the damn question.

“You mean,” Steve clears his throat; “biological sex?”

Again: Bucky. In his lap.

Really bad for his brain-to-mouth filter. Fuck.

“No,” T’Challa says slowly. “I mean the act of coupling in physical union, Captain. You cannot pretend you are unaware, not among us,” his lips quirk, now, and oh, _Christ_ —

“We _have_ heard you.”

Bucky snorts, and Jesus _Christ_ , but it’s bad enough that Bucky brings it up in the privacy of their _room_ , but like this, from the mouth of the _king_ —

“If you are thinking to apologize, _again_ ,” T’Challa does everything _but_ actually roll his eyes; “don’t.” 

“Yeah Stevie,” Bucky agrees, and he does roll his eyes, and he adds on a grin, cheeky as hell: “the king liked knowing that we were well and thriving."

He uses T’Challa’s words pointedly, and T’Challa does laugh, then, brightly too, as he tacks on the important part, the one that makes it okay that everyone in this room, and then some, has heard Bucky take him apart, because they’re well, and they’re thriving, yes.

“And in love,” T’Challa says with a nod, knowingly, his own eyes drifting toward Nakia, and that’s it.

That’s always going to be it.

“It’s just a shame you never got around to finishing those advanced sound-cancelling earpods you designed before they moved out,” Nakia chimes in bland in tone, though she grins slyly in Shuri’s direction. 

“Other priorities,” Shuri shrugs; “plus they do still stay the night now and again, so it is not as if the earpods were a lost cause entirely.”

“True.”

“To your question,” T’Challa cuts in again to address Bucky: “ _seriously_ , though, it is the minerals.”

“As I explained,” Shuri makes clear, and she smirks at her brother, just a little.

“Quite simple, really,” he nods; “and useful.”

The look on Nakia’s face at the layer of implication, playful and searing all at once, is enough to balance the absolute flat expression on T’Challa’s face in kind.

Steve suddenly feels his sense of kinship shift, in this moment at least, from T’Challa to Nakia, on the grounds of being completely and utterly out-gunned in terms of shamelessness by their partner.

Unfortunately for Steve, Nakia will without a doubt make T’Challa pay for it tenfold, whereas Steve’s not that skilled—and, well, given the heated glaze in Bucky’s eye, all creative potential and plans for later? He isn’t sure he wants to be.

“We will leave you,” Nakia announces, her authority unquestioned in the room.

“Here,” Shuri says, making to stand but grabbing something from her pocket to toss Nakia’s way; “you left yours in my lab, and if they don’t make it home by nightfall...”

Ah. She tossed a pair of the earpods.

“Smartass,” Bucky tries to snark, but she’s got him—they both know it.

“Practical,” she counters; “and correct.”

Definitely got him.

“Drink up then, I guess,” Steve sighs, grabbing for a forgotten glass of water behind them and pushing it at Bucky, who’s finally sitting up from Steve’s lap; his flush has faded, and again: maybe he’s starting to recognize a lost cause when it finds him.

Bucky turns to study him, only needing a moment to get a read on exactly what Steve means, and exactly how much of whatever shame he has left has died as a result of this entire conversation.

The water, the source: the tap, the pools, local, mineral-rich—

Bucky grins like a fucking _wolf_ , and where Shuri whoops a little about said animal in an entirely different context, Steve feels like fresh fucking meat to be devoured, and he’s all for it.

 _All_ for it—just maybe not with an audience.

( _Yet_.)

Steve wants to gut his own subconscious for so much as _thinking_ that.

“I wish the world knew how dirty you can get,” Bucky purrs, and Steve snorts.

“I have no shame, apparently,” he deadpans, and there’s new color in his cheeks nonetheless, he can feel it: “it’ll probably get out eventually.”

Nakia chuckles, now getting to her feet; T’Challa’s eyes follow her carefully, hungrily, soft and needy and it’s endearing, really.

Poor man’s got it _so_ bad, and maybe that’s another point of kinship between them, Steve thinks, and runs his hand over Bucky’s chest without thinking, relishing the fact that he _can_.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” T’Challa laughs and waves them off, following Nakia and taking his leave. “If you do choose to stay in your rooms, do be sure to inform the attendants on the floor that they’re relieved of their stations for the night.”

“Enjoy the water!” Shuri needles happily off her brother’s more-staid-but-no-less-effective momentum, jumping up and following him out.

“I feel like maybe we owe her the opportunity to test those earpods,” Bucky says, turning over and pressing Steve into the sofa, nipping at his ear in the process, and Steve doesn’t get a chance to agree, or protest, or decide either way because they’re, once again, not alone, and Steve used to have a sense of decency about that sort of thing, in public-ish places, not to mention _royal_ places.

He should probably be more concerned about when that sense of decency fell to the wayside.

“Bucky,” Nakia pokes her head back around the doorway, tone low and _absolutely_ conspiratory, now, as her eyes slip meaningfully to Bucky’s hand already twisted in Steve’s hair: “do not believe them for a second.”

Her grin spreads ever so slow, and ever-too please before she confides in secret:

“It is _absolutely_ the sex.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
